Politics

And the hits just keep coming!

First it’s the disingenuous twisting and distorting of Barack Obama’s statements about Ronald Reagan which (rightly, IMO) suggested that Reagan had tapped into and delivered upon a desire for fundamental change in a way that Bill Clinton’s presidency didn’t. At no point did Obama suggest that he thought Reagan was a “great” president, though:

“I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not. Um, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s, and, you know, the government had grown and grown and there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. And, I think, people just tapped in– he tapped into what people were already feeling which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepeneurship that had been missing.”

Compare that to the nonsense both Hillary and Bill are claiming he said and you have to wonder which is worse: how stupid and easily manipulated they clearly think Americans are, or how stupid and easily manipulated the press clearly is that they report this garbage unchallenged on the eve of a critical and competitive election. Ironically, the following statement can be found right on Clinton’s own website in the Press Releases section, in an article dated 12/12/07 announcing several New Hampshire newspapers endorsing her:

She is sincere and passionate about restoring fiscal responsibility, providing health care to all Americans, protecting the environment, keeping the tax burden off the middle class and earning the faith and trust of the American people.

But no president can do it alone. She must break recent tradition, cast cronyism aside and fill her cabinet with the best people, not only the best Democrats, but the best Republicans as well.. We’re confident she will do that. Her list of favorite presidents – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, George H.W. Bush and Reagan – demonstrates how she thinks. As expected, Bill Clinton was also included on the aforementioned list.

[ETA: Ben Smith has more on Clinton and Reagan, including her campaign’s clumsy two-step explanation which, ironically, makes reference to “damaged” audio from the original interview where it came up!]

Besides the hypocritical presence of Bush and Reagan, most notable by his absence is Lyndon B. Johnson, the president without whom, she recently suggested, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been little more than an idealistic dreamer. A cynical observer might suspect that’s because in those long-ago years, when she was less concerned with the black vote, she supported Johnson’s opponent, the Republican Barry Goldwater, who was against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and lost to Johnson by one of the largest margins in the history of U.S. Presidential elections.

But people change, right? They mature, become enlightened, evolve their thinking. Right?

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